


Taking a Shot

by Jo (jmathieson)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Mission Fic, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 12:05:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5868766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmathieson/pseuds/Jo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes drastic measures lead to better understandings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking a Shot

“Motherfucker! You shot me!” Clint crouched on the floor of the dusty warehouse, his hands wrapped tightly around the wound in his calf. “Motherfucking suit motherfucking shot me,” he muttered, head down. Then suddenly he sprang at Phil Coulson, tackling him to the ground and knocking the gun out of his hand. It skittered under a shipping container.

Clint aimed a fist at Phil’s kidneys, but Phil twisted and caught the blow on his hip. Phil got Clint in a headlock, and tucked his face in close to Clint’s shoulder.

“You okay?” he whispered as Clint strained against the hold and made a show of gasping for breath.

“Fucking-A,” Clint said and flipped them both over. By this time, the other two men in the warehouse had finally quit gawping and moved in to separate them. Sammy Mankiewicz, the boss, grabbed Phil by the arm and pulled, while his bodyguard, a bruiser named Benny, got his arms around Clint’s middle and lifted. Clint twisted and started to vent his ire on Benny, then thought better of it and patted his broad chest.

“Okay, Ben. It’s okay, you can put me down. I won’t do nothing to him I promise. Scout’s honor.”

Benny looked over at his boss. Mankiewicz nodded, then held out a hand to help Phil up off the floor. Phil got up, tripped over his own feet, and stumbled against Sammy, who steadied him. “Sorry, sir. Sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

“What did you go and do that for? Now I’ve got to get the cleaners in to wipe up all the blood.”

“I’m really very sorry Mr. Mankiewicz,” Phil said looking sheepish. “He just got on my last nerve.”

“Well I unnerstand that the guy is a wiseass who thinks he’s funny, and he’s been riding you pretty hard today, but you can’t just go shooting people like that. It’s not how we do things. Where’d you get the gun, anyway?” 

Phil looked around as if suddenly realizing that he’d lost his weapon. “I, ah, bought it last week. Things have been kind of… tense around here lately and I was worried that I might need to defend myself. Just in case.”

Sammy Mankiewicz threw his head back and laughed. “An accountant with balls. That’s a first.” He slapped Phil heartily on the back, knocking him forward a couple of inches. “I admire the fuck out of that, but something you gotta unnerstand is that in this organization is that I don’t just pick any numskull off the street. Only the best. You’re the best at what you do, right?”

Phil smiled a proud smile. “Absolutely! No one can obscure a paper trail like I can. It would take the Feds years to trace the shell corporations I’ve created back to your organization and by that time-”

“Yes, yes, exactly.” Sammy waved a hand, and then pointed it at Clint. “So you unnerstand that he is also the best at what he does. Guy can hit a flea on a mouse’s ear at a hundred yards in the rain. So even though he’s a pain in the ass, I need him. Just like I need you. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.” Phil looked contrite.

“So you two need to kiss and make up. And to give you the chance to do that, I’m gonna send you with him to get patched up. Benny, get the car and drive these two idiots over to the doc.”

“But, sir, I don’t have time for that,” Phil said. “There’s the land appraisal forms to file and-”

“No argument. I’m paying you to do whatever I need you to do, and right now I need you to go with him to the doc.” Sammy leaned in close to Phil and turned his head to whisper into Phil’s ear. “Benny’s not so good with blood, you know? Don’t let on I told you.” Phil nodded, and Sammy turned back to where Benny was already helping a limping Clint towards the door.

“And if they give you any trouble, Benny, knock their heads together a few more times,” Sammy Mankiewicz said.

Phil followed Benny and Clint out to the car. Checking to make sure they weren’t being watched, he glanced at Clint, who gave him a nod and a cheerful grin. Phil took a tiny syringe from a secret pocket sewn into his suit and, as Benny was opening the back door of the limo to help Clint into it, jabbed it into the back of the bodyguard’s neck.

The SHIELD knock-out formula worked almost instantaneously, and Phil shoved Benny into the back seat as he slumped forward. Clint grabbed his legs to finish stuffing them in and tossed the car keys to Phil, who was already moving around to the driver’s door.

“Get in,” Phil said tersely.

Clint took a short hopping step, yanked the passenger door open, and climbed in. Phil had the car in gear and moving before he managed to pull the door shut.

“Seatbelt.”

Clint glanced over at Phil while he buckled up. Something was wrong. Maybe Phil hadn’t gotten the thumb drive from Sammy during the scuffle after all? Clint wasn’t looking forward to going back to working for Sammy Mankiewicz.

“How’s your leg?”

“Stings, but it was a clean through-and-through. Should be fine.”

“Here,” Phil said. He took one hand off the steering wheel and used it to loosen, then strip off his tie. “Put this around it. Not too tight.”

“I know. You make me do the first-aid refresher every six months.” Clint wound the strip around his calf and tied it snug.

“We’ll be at the safe-house in seven minutes, will you be okay until then?”

“Yeah, ‘course I will. Are we going back after, or is the mission a bust?”

Phil turned and looked at him in surprise. “The mission’s over. The thumb drive with all the data we need is in my pocket.”

“Great.” Clint leaned back in his seat and relaxed. His leg throbbed, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. They’d call SHIELD as soon as they reached the safe-house and a medical team would come and patch him up. He’d be back on the range in three days and back on active duty within a few weeks.

But next to him, both hands back on the steering wheel and his knuckles showing white, Phil was still tense.

“Uh, Coulson, is something wrong?”

“Besides the fact that you have a hole in your leg, you mean?”

“Yeah, apart from that. Is there something else up with the mission or, uh, anything?” The tires squealed a little as Phil swerved around a delivery truck that stopped suddenly in half of their lane.

“Goddam asshole,” Phil said with quiet bitterness. Then he visibly took a deep breath and blew it out. “I just want to get you medical attention as soon as possible.”

“Okay,” Clint said, not convinced. “Thanks.” Something was up with Coulson, and Clint spent the next five minutes of the trip through the city trying to figure it out. Was Coulson second-guessing himself? Sure, shooting Clint in the leg was a pretty drastic move, but they had been running out of time. The buyer for the info on the thumb drive was due to meet with Mankiewicz in a couple of hours, and neither Clint nor Phil had counted on Sammy keeping it on his person at all times. The plan had been to infiltrate the organization, and steal the drive out of a desk or safe or briefcase or wherever. But for three increasingly frustrating weeks, neither Clint nor Phil had found a single opportunity to do that. So with time running out, Phil had taken the last chance they’d had.

Coulson always got upset when someone got hurt on his watch, even when it wasn’t his fault. The number of times Clint had woken up in medical with Phil sitting by his bed was a testament to that. Phil always looked a guilty and a little sad, even when there had been absolutely nothing he could have done about it. The only time he didn’t seem to take it personally when Clint got hurt was when he had done something dumb, like jump off a building. Then Phil just got mad at him instead.

Clint had never seen this reaction, though. Coulson looked like he was wound so tightly he might snap. The car pulled up in front of a nondescript building with a security grille on the door.

“Can you walk that far?” Phil asked, his voice still tight.

“Sure, no problem.” Clint unbuckled his seatbelt and started to ease himself out of the car. By the time he had one hand on the top of the door frame and was gingerly putting weight on his injured leg, Coulson had come around to his side.

“Put your arm around my shoulder,” he said, and his tone of voice made it more of an order than a suggestion. Clint didn’t mind. His leg really did hurt, and it was nice to be able to lean on someone you trusted when you were hurt. Clint wrapped his arm around Coulson’s shoulder taking care not to obstruct his holster. Phil looked carefully up and down the deserted street, glanced briefly at Benny, still slumped in the back seat, and then put his arm around Clint’s waist to help him walk.

“Okay, let’s go.” They crossed the sidewalk to the door quickly, and Phil pressed his thumb against the side of what looked like an ordinary magnetic-card reader. A lock clicked and Phil swung the grille open, then the steel door behind it. “There should be a light switch on the left,” he said as they negotiated getting through the door with Clint leaning heavily on Phil.

Once inside Clint found the light and Phil closed and locked the doors behind them. Then they made their way to a plain blue sofa in the middle of a nondescript living room. Clint had been in quite a few SHIELD safe-houses over the past few years and while they all held the same inventory of guns, food, clothing, and medical supplies, the furnishings were as varied and eccentric as the locales. This one seemed to have been furnished on a single whirlwind trip to IKEA, judging by the unfinished-pine theme of the living room, which was marred only by the presence of a large grey metal gun safe on the back wall.

As soon as Clint had collapsed gratefully onto the sofa, Phil crossed to the safe and this time used a more obvious thumbprint scanner to open it. What he took out, however, was a cell phone, which he dialed and stuck between his head and shoulder. “I’m going to get the first aid supplies. Be right back.”

Clint nodded, and half-listened while Phil went though the agent identification protocols, giving his personal security number and the mission’s code name.

“I need a medical team to safe-house Bravo-37 as soon as possible. Agent Barton has sustained a through-and-through gunshot wound, 32 caliber, to the left calf,” he was saying as he walked back into the room carrying a small duffle bag. Phil sat down on the (low, square, unfinished pine) coffee table and put the bag next to him. “Yes. Yes, thank you. Coulson out.”

Phil put the phone down and unzipped the bag. “Medical team will be here in 12 minutes. Now, let me take a look at this,” he said, reaching for the tie knotted around Clint’s calf.

“Not that I don’t trust you to patch me up, boss, because you know I totally do. Especially after that time in Schenectady, but if the Med team is only twelve minutes out, maybe it’s better to wait for them?” Clint was looking at the side of Phil’s face, so he saw the twitch in his jaw. “I’m okay, Coulson,” Clint said quietly. “Really.”

“Yes. Of course.” Phil zipped the bag back up, but still didn’t turn to look at Clint.

“Uh, do you mind if I ask what the fuck is going on?” Clint asked after a minute’s silence.

Phil blew out his breath and folded his arms across his chest, then turned and finally looked Clint in the eye.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice sounding strangled. “I couldn’t think of any other way to get the drive from Sammy before the buyer showed up. Believe me, I tried everything else I could think of, but we were running out of time and the data–”

“I know how important the data is, and I know you wouldn’t have shot me if you’d had any other option. It’s okay, Coulson, really. Hell, I hurt worse than this lots of times when Trickshot–” Clint stopped because Phil made a pained noise in the back of his throat and looked away again.

“Clint, I…” He stopped, and Clint waited. This was the first time Senior Agent Phil Coulson had ever called him anything other than ‘Barton.’ He watched as Phil’s throat worked, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “I don’t want to be just another person in your life who has hurt you,” he finally said, so softly that Clint barely heard him.

Clint’s mind whirled, trying to make sense of what Coulson had just said, trying to figure out what it meant, and trying to come up with some sort of response.

“Hey, no,” he said, reaching out and laying his hand on Coulson’s knee. “No, you could never be that. I trust you. S’why I know you’ll always have my back. And I’ll always have yours. Always.” Clint tried to put everything he felt, everything he couldn’t say into that last word.

Phil made a sound that Clint realized was a bitter laugh. “Shooting you in the leg is a funny way to have your back.”

“Look, we’re, uh, friends, right?” Clint asked unsurely. He considered Phil Coulson his friend, and he figured —well, he hoped, anyway—that Phil felt the same way about him.

Was Clint imagining it, or were Phil’s eyes shining a little brighter as he answered. “Yes, I… Yes, Clint. We’re friends.”

Clint nodded. “Right, so that’s how I know that you wouldn’t have done this if you’d had any other choice. You made the best call you could to save the mission, to get the data. That’s all.”

Coulson sucked in a deep breath and let it out, looking like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “Okay. But once you’re walking properly, I’m taking you out to the best burger joint in the city as an apology for shooting you. No arguments.”

“Have you ever known me to turn down a free burger?” Clint said with a grin.

Coulson shook his head and smiled back at him, then his expression grew serious. “I am truly sorry.”

“I know. That’s what makes it okay.” Clint squeezed Phil’s knee where his hand was still resting, and then lifted it away. There was something in Phil’s face, then, something Clint didn’t recognize, but it made butterflies start to flutter in his stomach. The way Phil had said ‘friends’ just now… Did he…? Could they maybe, someday, be more than that?

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to desert-neon for beta-reading!


End file.
